A contemporary West Hollywood artist with a passion for the Middle East has teamed up with her mother to sell artwork at a Pasadena studio to benefit Syrian refugees.

Lara Salmon, 25, and Niki Salmon, 64, will be showing about 20 paintings, including some they created together, related to local and international refugees as well as their travels through the Arab world. The paintings, mostly watercolor and ink, will be on display at their “No Vacancy” art show starting Sunday at the Louis Jane Studio in Old Pasadena through much of September.

The Salmons, who will sell originals, prints and greeting cards of their creations, are donating all proceeds from the show’s opening night and a portion thereafter to the International Rescue Committee for its work in Syria.

“The way I look at it, before they are Syrian and I’m American, we’re all human,” Lara Salmon said, adding the show has nothing to do with politics or what the U.S. should or should not do militarily in the war-torn Arab country. “When someone else is going through a crisis like this, I think it’s my job as a human to do what I can to help.”

While an art student at UC Berkeley, Lara studied Arabic and lived in Lebanon in 2009-10 through a study abroad program at the American University of Beirut. She also did her senior thesis project there. Mom Niki visited her that year, and the two traveled together to Syria for a week. The younger artist was struck by how kind people were in Syria and throughout the Middle East, often going out of their way to make the two feel welcome and comfortable in the country.

“These are two women who have been involved with the IRC for a long time as volunteers and otherwise,” said Martin Zogg, executive director of the Internatinal Rescue Committee in Los Angeles, which is based in Glendale and serves most of Southern California. “Their commitment to our work —- not just our international relief work but our resettlement work here in Southern California — has been constant and is really extraordinary.” One of Lara’s paintings is inspired by a photo of a Syrian family who fled to Turkey, but the father was going to return to Syria to fight. Another, a collaboration with her mother, shows an image of a boy who is Alawite — the same religious sect as President Bashar al-Assad — whose father has been killed by a Sunni neighbor.

Since a March 2011 protest against the Assad regime erupted into civil war, more than 100,000 people have been killed and nearly 2 million registered refugees, including 1 million children, have fled Syria, according to the United Nations. Some 2 million children are currently displaced within the country.

“It’s creating some art, but it’s also having a purpose and hopefully spreading the word that more money is needed for the aid agencies who are struggling to help refugees,” Niki, who teaches health and wellness to senior citizens in San Diego, said of the show.

Besides using images of Syrian refugees they found on the Internet, Niki also used images of recently immigrated refugee teens that she has worked with as a volunteer with the IRC in San Diego.

Artist Louise Wannier, who owns the Louis Jane Studio and grew up with Niki in Pasadena, said she was happy to help the mother-daughter team in their cause.

“We have to call attention to supporting all people who suffer and who are subject to frightening conditions, no matter what our faith or religion,” said Wannier, who is Jewish.

The “No Vacancy” show’s opening reception is from 4 to 9 p.m. Sunday at the Louis Jane Studio, 93 E. Union St. (Legge Alley) in Pasadena. The gallery is open 2 to 5 p.m. Mondays and Fridays, 4 to 9 on Saturdays and 12 to 3 Sundays through Sept. 28.

Brenda Gazzar is a multilingual multimedia reporter who has worked for a variety of news outlets in California and in the Middle East since 2000. She has covered a range of issues, including breaking news, immigration, law and order, race, religion and gender issues, politics, human interest stories and education. Besides the Los Angeles Daily News and its sister papers, her work has been published by Reuters, the Denver Post, Ms. Magazine, the Jerusalem Post, USA Today, the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, The Cairo Times and others. Brenda speaks Spanish, Hebrew and intermediate Arabic and is the recipient of national, state and regional awards, including a National Headliners Award and one from the Associated Press News Executives' Council. She holds a dual master's degree in Communications/Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

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